How Drunk Was Mary?

[Ben]

Hi Batman,

Yes, Kennedy was discredited.

She had evidently spoken to Sarah Lewis at some point, and passed the latter's story off as her own. Fortunately, her antics were spotted in time for the inquest, which is why she did not appear at it.

All the best,
Ben

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Surely we have to take the statements of witnesses who came forward of their own free will on some kind of trust? If we're going to dismiss all of the uncorroborated ones we are going to be left with Lechmere, Lawende and ....um!

That's why I think Schwartz is telling the truth, but this is for another thread.

[Batman]

Hi Batman,

Yes, Kennedy was discredited.

She had evidently spoken to Sarah Lewis at some point, and passed the latter's story off as her own. Fortunately, her antics were spotted in time for the inquest, which is why she did not appear at it.

All the best,
Ben

Cool beans. Thanks.

[Wickerman]

Cool beans. Thanks.

Ah, wrong answer Batman.
Your next response should be, "where does it say this?"

Be careful, there are those who will present opinion as fact.

[Ben]

Cool beans. Thanks.

You're welcome, Batman.

Kennedy has been discussed a great deal here over the years, and the specifics of her discrediting can often be found lurking in one of the many Hutchinson threads that litter the forum.

You'll encounter the occasional theorist who seeks to revive her account as both accurate and truthful, but you can count them on one hand.

Cheers,
Ben

[GUT]

Ah, wrong answer Batman.
Your next response should be, "where does it say this?"

Be careful, there are those who will present opinion as fact.

Without buying in to the argument about Mrs Kennedy's veracity, better advice that the above, you will never get on all of Casebook always ask [if the issue matters to you] where is that found ... then go and have a look for yourself. Then make your own mind up.

It's not always an attempt to present opinion as fact, or press a pet theory it can be as basic as two people interpreting a word or phrase differently.

[Batman]

Ah, wrong answer Batman.
Your next response should be, "where does it say this?"

Be careful, there are those who will present opinion as fact.

Abberline was convinced Hutchenson was telling the truth. A fact. Yet today we know that it is highly unlikely Hutchenson told the truth but was trying to deflect attention away from himself because he was loitering around her alley at the time of her death. So for logical reasons we can choose to reject some 'facts' if the case against those facts is good.

Now when someone told me that Kennedy's statement had appeared out of the mouth of someone else before, that doesn't bold well for Kennedy. So I went to read about Sarah Lewis. Now unless Kennedy is Sarah Lewis, then Kennedy has most likely plagurized the account, unless the suspect is stupid enough to try the same thing twice in the same place after scaring women away or Lewis/Kennedy were together?

[GUT]

Abberline was convinced Hutchenson was telling the truth. A fact. Yet today we know that it is highly unlikely Hutchenson told the truth but was trying to deflect attention away from himself because he was loitering around her alley at the time of her death. So for logical reasons we can choose to reject some 'facts' if the case against those facts is good.

We know this? Could have fooled me reading the Hutch threads, some think that they know it, others hotly dispute this knowledge.

Now when someone told me that Kennedy's statement had appeared out of the mouth of someone else before, that doesn't bold well for Kennedy. So I went to read about Sarah Lewis. Now unless Kennedy is Sarah Lewis, then Kennedy has most likely plagurized the account, unless the suspect is stupid enough to try the same thing twice in the same place after scaring women away or Lewis/Kennedy were together?

And how do we rule out either possibility?

[DVV]

Abberline was logically impressed bu Hutch on Monday 12, desperate as he sure was.
How long did he trust Hutch, though ?
Was he candid enough to swallow the grotesque supposed Sunday sighting ?
I hope not, and guess not.
On the contrary, that garbage story delivered to the press might explain, among other possible reasons, why Hutch was soon discredited.
Well done.

[Batman]

And how do we rule out either possibility?

You don't have to falsify either one (if they even could be) you just select the most parsimonous one, which is that Kennedy is repeating a story given by someone else.

If you read JtR:A-Z and read about Kennedy & Lewis it tells me that.

1. The hypothesis that they are same is not as good as the hypothesis they are different because:
a) Lewis describes Hutchenson in her account. Kennedy omits him.
b) Lewis describes a man similar to blotchy face. Kennedy doesn't.
c) Even after the inquest the papers didn't rectify that they were one and the same, but continues to refer to them as Kennedy & Lewis.
d) Neither mentions they were with the other by name.
e) The papers are on the record distrusting Kennedy because they had Lewis saying something similar.
f) Only Lewis was at the inquest.

2. That Kennedy copied Lewis.
a) The press said as much.
b) Lewis didn't copy Kennedy because she would have to have added more correct details to her account.
c) Lewis is not going to her parents home as Kennedy claims at the time. She was going to a pub.

Conclusion: Kennedy plaguerized Lewis.

[Robert]

Here is a link to an article by the late and much missed Chris Scott :

http://www.ripperologist.biz/pdf/ripperologist133.pdf

[Wickerman]

Abberline was convinced Hutchenson was telling the truth. A fact. Yet today we know that it is highly unlikely ......

The failing in that statement is, "we know".
What precisely do "we know", as distinct from what "we assume"?

Please clarify.

Now when someone told me that Kennedy's statement had appeared out of the mouth of someone else before, that doesn't bold well for Kennedy. So I went to read about Sarah Lewis. Now unless Kennedy is Sarah Lewis, then Kennedy has most likely plagurized the account, unless the suspect is stupid enough to try the same thing twice in the same place after scaring women away or Lewis/Kennedy were together?

This has been explored so many times.....but:

Sarah Lewis appeared on Friday morning about 2:30 am and saw one man & one woman outside the Britannia. Whereas Mrs Kennedy showed up around 3:00 am and passed one man with two women.
Lewis was a family friend, Kennedy was the daughter.

How does that make them the same woman?


As two women claimed to experience the same encounter on "Wednesday", and we have two accounts from two women, then the simple explanation is that Lewis & Kennedy were the two women involved.

It would be quite different if the Wednesday encounter involved only one woman.

A previous example is that of Mrs Long & Mrs Durrell, both telling the same story, but the story involved only one woman - ergo, Long & Durrell were likely the same woman.

This is clearly not the case with Lewis & Kennedy on "Wednesday".

[Ben]

I'm sorry, but the idea that these were two separate, genuine female witnesses whose accounts were unbelievably similar is nightmarishly implausible for the obvious reason that they could not have failed to encounter each other in the same tiny bedroom, #2, which was the same size as Kelly's! "Hey Sarah, I've just walked here in the small hours, in the pissing rain, passing a scary man who accosted me on Wednesday, and now here I am at the Keylers. What? You've just had all of that happen to you too? What are the odds!? And oh dear, we both don't seem to sleeping well either, and we're both hearing a cry of "murder".

And then they mysteriously don't mention each other.

Just...no.

[Wickerman]

Ok, lets see how your list holds up.

1. The hypothesis that they are same is not as good as the hypothesis they are different because:
a) Lewis describes Hutchenson in her account. Kennedy omits him.

Lewis was at Millers Court at 2:30, while Hutchinson was present.
Kennedy arrived there after 3:00, after Hutchinson had left.

b) Lewis describes a man similar to blotchy face. Kennedy doesn't.

Same answer as above.

c) Even after the inquest the papers didn't rectify that they were one and the same, but continues to refer to them as Kennedy & Lewis.

Precisely.

d) Neither mentions they were with the other by name.

Thats normal, at the Stride inquest Diemschitz doesn't name Kozebrodski who ran with him.

e) The papers are on the record distrusting Kennedy because they had Lewis saying something similar.

Thats already been proven incorrect.

f) Only Lewis was at the inquest.

That is not evidence, Mrs Maxwell was called yet Maurice Lewis was not, yet both claimed to see Kelly on Friday morning.
The Coroner does not want two witnesses telling the same story.

See how your conclusions are based on a false premise?

[Ben]

Batman's conclusions seem very sound to me.

Maurice Lewis's evidence would have been drastically undermined by the revelation that no pubs had recalled seeing Kelly or serving her alcohol on the night of her death, if memory serves. His evidence only supports Maxwell inasmuch as it indicates a later time of death than that provided by other witnesses. There is nowhere near the astonishing, highly suspicious degree of detail that we find between the Kennedy and Lewis accounts. Had there been any consideration that these two were two separate accounts from two separate woman - and the concept is truly risible in its improbability - police and coroner would have jumped at the chance to establish a sequence of events that was cemented by two witnesses who corroborate each other in virtually every particular.